Fly Past

WHITE STAR

Spitfires

WHITE STAR

A

s their training progressed,

the fledgling pilots of the

31st Fighter Group realised

they would not be going to war in

their then current mount, the Bell

P-39 Airacobra.

They had been practising long

sector flights in anticipation of

ferrying the P-39s to Britain,

when the news came they

would be crossing the

Atlantic by ship.

These men were

destined to

be the first operational fighter

pilots in the USAAF’s Eighth

Air Force. They knew their

opposition would be the infamous

Messerschmitt Bf 109 and the more

fearsome Focke-Wulf Fw 190. Both

types were more capable than the

P-39, especially at high altitude.

The Eighth’s high command had

found a solution to the Airacobra’s

inadequacies; in a reversal of Lend-

Lease, its pilots were going to

fly Supermarine Spitfire Vs. The

31st was not on its own in this, as

several other USAAF fighter units,

including the 4th and 52nd Fighter

Groups (FGs), also depended on

this legendary machine in combat.

With the Battle of Britain over,

there was sufficient production

capacity to supply a limited number

of Mk.Vs to the Americans.

COMBAT DEBUT

In early June 1942, 31st FG

groundcrew boarded luxury liner-

turned-troopship RMS Queen

Elizabeth bound

for Scotland

and were

WORLD WAR TWO SUPERMARINE SPITFIRE

104 FLYPAST September 2018